This article comes from WeChat No public: cultural aspect (ID: whzh_21bcr) , author: Yang (Institute of international relations and public Affairs Shanghai international Studies University), the original title: “Kremlin Gong Zhichang: Can Putin break through the siege this time? “Cultural Aspect”, picture from: Visual China
Introduction: On January 15, the resignation of the entire Russian government shocked the world. Soon after the news was announced, President Putin immediately announced the appointment of a new prime minister. External analysis believes that this shows that this power alternation has been planned for a long time, and it also means that the new arrangement will further strengthen Putin’s strongman political status. In this new power distribution, what old problems and new challenges does Putin face? The author re-examines the historical origins of Russian strongman politics, recalls how the difficulties faced by Medvedev’s government led to today’s reorganization, and extends a long-term issue: Russia will usher in the continuous administration of political strongman Putin In the dark, or will it rise again as a global power that Russians cherish? The author points out that Putin faces at least the fourfold challenge in the 4.0 era: one is how to solve the problem of Russian regime change; the other is how to ensure the stability of the Putin system in the context of the “2024 problem”; the third is Russia How can the economy get out of the predicament of low growth and no development? The fourth is how to handle the relationship with the western world and build an external environment conducive to the development of Russia. If these issues cannot be properly addressed, fundamental issues such as the stability of Russian politics, the sustainability of development, and the paradoxes of the East and the West in international identity may be manifested in a more drastic way after 2024. The article originally contained “Cultural Aspect” No. 8 of 2018, which only represents the author’s point of view.
Since ancient times, for any country’s politics and government, no political function and matching institutional arrangements are more important than leaders. It is they who, in fact, formulate the major political guidelines for the internal affairs and foreign affairs of the countries in which they are located, and thus determine the development path of their own countries to a certain extent. As a politician, being able to have enough political authority and gain a relatively autonomous and independent governing space is the goal that every leader strives for. In other words, strongman politics and political strongman are two sides in one.
Since the new century, the frequency of strongman politics and political strongman as a discourse, narrative, and phenomenon has increased significantly. Some scholars even believe that world politics is entering a new era of strongman politics. Probably the most striking of these is Russian President Putin. Compared with the emergence of a group of political strongmen with populist slogans and protectionism at the core of the global financial crisis in 2008 and a new round of the European Union compound crisis, they were successfully elected as Russian President on March 18, 2018. Putin is undoubtedly the myth of strongman politics in the new era. High public opinion alone is enough to make Western leaders who are familiar with the logic of democratic politics fully envious, jealous, but unable to hate complex emotions.
But for Putin, the prelude to the fourth presidential term has just begun, and his term will end in 2024. He is destined to be the longest-serving Russian leader after Stalin in the last century. So how did Putin’s new political cycle happen? What will it look like in the future? What historic opportunities did Russia gain in Putin’s long term administration? Will Russia usher in the “dark moment” in the continuous rule of political strongman Putin, or will it rise again as a global power that Russians cherish? When we discuss the development situation of Russia under Putin, these issues should be reviewed repeatedly.
History and tradition of Russian strongman politics and realistic institutional arrangements
The preference for strong and individual leaders is a major feature of Russian political culture. This tradition runs through the entire period of the Principality of Moscow and the Russian Empire. The absolute monarchy and Orthodox Church complement each other. The latter is different from Western Christian civilization, which emphasizes individual, freedom, and democracy. The word “tsar” of law and power, along with the strongman political logic behind it, is passed down from generation to generation.
The October Revolution of 1917 shattered the weakest link in the imperialist chain and began a great experiment of socialist construction that affects all mankind, but this does not hinder the worship of political strong men and the political logic of strong men Infiltrating Soviet politics from the depths of historyGene. After Lenin’s death in 1924, Stalin used the general secretary’s identity to go through several political power struggles and finally established the undisputed absolute leadership of the CPSU. Stalin’s strongman politics continued until his death in 1953, for a total of nearly thirty years.
Subsequently, Khrushchev relied on public criticism of Stalin’s personal worship, and established a new political cycle. The principle of collective leadership was reaffirmed, but in practice Khrushchev inevitably slipped to the new one. In the course of historical construction of the round political strongman, it was dismissed by the party forces until October 1964. After Khrushchev’s departure, the CPSU tried to prevent the recurrence of strongman politics in writing, but as Brezhnev’s authority in the “troika” increased, Soviet politics finally returned to history Path-dependent.
After a short period of transition between Andropov and Chernenko, Gorbachev took over the obviously rigid and aging Soviet political carriage as a reformist. After many attempts to reform within the system but failed to achieve the desired results, Gorbachev turned his discourse goals more toward the people, trying to use the support of the bottom of the society to obtain reforms and re-establish the legitimacy of socialism. The rhythm of history repeated surprisingly, but Gorbachev, who also favored strongman politics, failed to truly become a political strongman, and eventually buried the Soviet Union and the CPSU.
After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Russia began to take the path of institutional transplantation under the leadership of Yeltsin’s team, trying to achieve a new round of modernization transformation from authoritarianism to democracy and from planned economy to market economy in the shortest time. But this degree of complexity is no less than the historical process of socialist construction, and it is promoted in the name of democracy with the essence of strongman politics. Thus, the institutional arrangements of the tradition of Russian strongman politics and the super-presidential system in real politics constitute a tight coupling relationship.
On December 12, 1993, Yeltsin won a political victory in the crucial court battle, and his proposal for a constitutional system with the President as the absolute priority was supported by a referendum. Prior to the referendum, Yeltsin appealed to the Russian public to support his constitutional bill with the mass base of the leader group accumulated during the Great Transformation in the late 1980s and early 1990s. This paragraph talked about the urgency and importance of strongman politics to Yeltsin, a political strongman:
I do not deny Presidential powers indeed in the draft constitutionElections, but this by no means means that economic development has lost its meaning in the new political cycle. There is no doubt that if Russia’s economy can be returned to the track of strong or sustainable growth in the next 6 years, it will inevitably require more solid public satisfaction and support, which will have a great impact on Putin’s proper solution to the “2024 problem” benefit. Some Russian elites have recently begun to use purchasing power parity to measure Russia ’s global ranking. This seems to indicate that the Kremlin has no hope of using real exchange rate-denominated GDP to enter the top five of the world. It still has important index significance in Putin’s new strongman political cycle.
Fourth, how to handle the relationship with the western world and build an international and regional environment that is conducive to its own development. The Ukrainian crisis has structurally changed Russia’s relations with the West, and it has also lowered relations between countries that have experienced many cycles and often declined since the end of the Cold War. Putin’s former assistant, also known as Putin’s ideological manipulator, Surkov, some time ago, even sent out Russia’s destiny for a century of loneliness. So far, despite the strong desire of US President Trump to improve relations with Russia, the anti-Russian / anti-American and anti-Russian / anti-Russian thoughts and political forces that have promoted each other in the United States and Russia are still strongly affecting And shaping the agenda of relations between the two countries. To what extent Russia-US relations can be normalized and gain sufficient development momentum, there are still many uncertain factors. The European Union, which regards itself as a normative power, is subject to a highly complex internal decision-making model, and its policy on Russia is still based on strategic doubts. The possibility of a full unbundling of EU-Russian relations before the Ukrainian crisis has not been sufficiently alleviated. Not big.
The paradox of the problem is that the pursuit of great power status has been engraved on the national genes of Russia. Putin ’s long article published in the “Independence” the day before Yeltsin ’s transfer of presidential power warned that Russia ’s risk of falling into second or even third class for the first time in centuries. Both the Russian academic circles and the decision-making circles believe that the root cause of the continued deterioration of Russia’s relations with the West is that Russia is not regarded as an equal partner by the West but more as a small follower, a dependency, and a sense of national humiliation. Russia’s strategic concerns can be partially satisfied as the West shifts its focus of competition to China, at least in the new cycle of Putin’s strongman politics.
Summary
On the whole, the vast space and the rich resource reserves attached to it are not only the comparative advantages of Russia, which are envied and jealous of other countries in the world, but also cannot be hated. It is also a happy and painful Russia and difficult to jump.The source of the comparative disadvantage of off-land impact on its development path lies. The soil and development space on which Russia’s political strongman and strongman politics depend are rooted. Putin won the 2018 presidential election with an absolute advantage and logic different from the three previous presidential elections, marking a new cycle of strongman politics under Russia. In his book “Monarchy”, Machiavelli pointed out that the influence of leaders on the development of events depends not only on their own subjective talents, but also by the unpredictable accidental factors and objective opportunities given them by fate. For Putin and his ruling team, this seems to mean that if some old issues that affect Russia’s long-term development cannot be properly addressed, the stability of Russian politics, the sustainability of development, and the East-West paradox in international identity The classic problem may be manifested in a more drastic way after 2024.
This article comes from WeChat public account: cultural aspect (ID: whzh_21bcr) , author: Yang (School of public Affairs and Shanghai international Studies University international relations)